Customer Reviews

The Body and the Blood: The Middle East's Vanishing Christians and the Possibility for Peace

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_The Body and the Blood_ by Charles M. Sennott is an excellent, important, and timely book, one of the best I have ever read on the modern Middle East. In this work he sought to do three things; one, tour the lands that Jesus visited as chronicled in the New Testament, describing what these locales are like today, two, report the problems of the indigenous Christians of the Middle East, and three, to discuss their role in the region.

The Christian presence in the lands Jesus lived in is unfortunately a diminishing one and Sennott was keen to document the historical, economic, political, and religious reasons for this ongoing exodus. In some ways the history of Christians in the Holy Land has always been one of emigration; nearly all of the apostles emigrated, fearing reprisals not only from Rome but also from such Jewish groups as the Sadducees. In the intervening centuries Christians have generally been a minority in the region, except perhaps during a brief period under the Byzantine Empire (in the fifth and sixth centuries).

While small, the Christian presence has endured until the 20th century, where particularly in the latter part of the century (and the early years so far of this century) it has been running the real risk of dying out completely in many areas. According to the census data kept by the Ottoman Empire, the Christian population in 1914 was 24% of what we could call today Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey; today it is no more than 5%. In British ruled Palestine it was as much as 20% of the population (though some put the figure at 13%), while today in Israel/Palestine it is less than 2%. About 35% of the total Christian population of Israel/Palestine (about 60,000 out of 700,000 total) were among those refugees who fled the fighting in 1948 and were not permitted by Israel to return. The Coptic Church in Egypt - one of the oldest in Christendom, tracing its roots back to Saint Mark the Evangelist, said to have arrived in Egypt in A.D. 60 - is steadily declining as well. The Copts number in 2000 about 5 million, or 6% of Egypt's population of 70 million; in the early 1970s there were 4 million but a bigger percentage of the population at around 12%. In early 20th century Jordanian Christians were 13% of the population; in 2000 they are only 2%. Lebanon has gone from in 1932 a 51.2% Christian population to a 25% one today.

Why have Christians emigrated in such large numbers or otherwise declined as a percentage of the overall population? There are many factors and the author was quick to point out that the reasons for leaving were not always religious in nature. Generally Christian communities have a lower birthrate, while in many areas Muslims have soaring birthrates. In some areas there has been a steady rate of conversion to Islam, generally among young women and as a result of marriage to Muslims.

War has played a big factor in emigration, with in particular Palestinian Christians leaving in waves with each major Arab-Israeli conflict and many thousands of Maronite Christians leaving Lebanon in the fifteen years of civil war (from 1975 to 1990 850,000 Christians fled the country).

The Christians, whether Copts in Egypt, Palestinian Christians, or Maronite Christians in Lebanon, generally had higher levels of education and were wealthier and were therefore better able to move, had more to lose in regional conflicts (such as the many Israeli crackdowns on Palestinian travel and trade with Israel, economically crippling to many Christian-owned businesses), and had to face resentment and jealousy from less well-off Muslim neighbors. Further, they generally had much stronger ties to the West, with Western churches in Europe, North America, and Australia (along with already resident immigrant communities in those nations) often times actively encouraging their emigration. In addition, as more and more of a particularly Christian family immigrated to a particular locale, the pressure mounted on those that remained to join their relations overseas.

However, religion can and does play a role in Christian emigration, and the very fact that Christians are leaving only serves to exacerbate the situation in the Middle East. Christians in Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon were an important secular and moderating influence in those areas. A minority, the Christians as leaders and as individuals did not emphasis religious differences or indeed religion at all, but instead often promoted unifying traits, whether bloodline among individual families or simply by being Arab. Their very existence and role in the economic and in particular the political life of the nations they inhabited served to promote a sense of pluralism and secular government, a factor working against (particularly in recent years) an increasing "climate of intolerance," whether radical Islamic (particularly in Lebanon with Hezbollah, Egypt, and among the Palestinians) or religiously Zionist. With Christian emigration pluralism and secular governments face an uncertain future.

The increasing role of radical, highly religious Islam has sundered many once mixed Christian-Muslim communities everywhere from Upper Egypt to the West Bank, with Christians futilely pointing out common ties and interests, pleas unheard by angry youths stirred up by radical Muslim clerics, their hatred whipped up against "infidels" and "Crusaders" despite the fact that the indigenous Christians had in general been in the region for millennia and that often tribes and families had both Christian and Muslim branches; suddenly a neighbor your knew all your life was "the enemy." Sometimes this growing divide was encouraged by Israel, whether accidentally by giving preferential treatment to the often better educated, wealthier, and less combative Christians or deliberately by seeking to fracture Palestinians in a divide and rule strategy among Christians and Muslims. Other times the Christians did this to themselves, as the Maronite Christians of Lebanon, eager and greedy to stay in power, would ally with one outside group after another (such as France or Israel) against Muslim factions in their own country.

If you believe that Israel is justified in its treatment of Palestinians, whether for reasons of security, entitlement or revenge, or if you believe that all Palestinians are culpable, this will be a difficult book. While the fear and anger behind the Israeli' reaction is understandable, neither they nor we can disregard the needs of the Palestinians or our obligation toward all humans.

Sennott will not allow you to dismiss the Palestinians. Their story cannot be overlooked, nor their treatment continue without loss of our own humanity. Sennott makes clear that the villains of this story are not the people, Jew or Palestinian, whether Christian or Muslim, but those seeking to maintain or gain power; those who have forgotten their religious heritage and merely co-opt that heritage for political purposes. He questions the message and motives of the religious leaders whose livelihood is provided by governments or political organizations. He notes the disconnection between indigenous Christians and their denominations.

The parallels between events and motivations today and those faced by Jesus 2000 years will frighten and alarm while providing insight into both the Middle East and our own lives.

You may question his journalistic impartiality. But, he is at least as critical of the Palestinian Authority as the Israeli government. His thesis is that the faiths so deeply invested in this troubled area, particularly Christianity with its tradition of non-violence and forgiveness as prerequisite to healing, are essential to the resolution of an otherwise insurmountable conflict.

You will be moved by this story. You must read it. You will also find in its message, whether Sennott intended it or not, disturbing questions about our culpability in the escalating violence and hatred. [e.g., Our government advised Israel to quickly quash the non-violent demonstrations initiated in the Christian Palestinian community because of the power of such movements; and the monetary support given by U.S. fundamentalist Christian groups to Zionist groups believing that provocation of violence would bring on the second coming of Christ.]

Read this book.

I picked up this book because of my interest in the subject. I am not so much interested in the religious aspects (although Jerusalem and it's basis in three faiths is always fascinating), as I was in how the conflict between the Arabs and Israelis has poisoned an entire region. After all Christianity was born in this area. As the author points out, many people don't understand how Christians can be challenged by the ongoing situation in the Middle East. The dwindling Christian population of Jerusalem is just one example. I had not really thought of this tertiary effect of the Arab-Israeli conflict because US news tends to be "very "go-go" with the hurly-burly of idiots parading around, making explosives of the real or imaginary, detonating them with the passion of their idiocy, and yet, ignoring the gentle, thoughtful people who are the true makers of society"
As the author points out, Christians and Jews alike lived in the region for a millenia without (largely) rancor. Today, with radical Muslim cleric and their talk of the Crusaders and Jews in the mosques, young radicalized and sometine hopeless Arabs believe the mind poison and feel rage even against their Arab neighbors who have a different religious background. The author also points out the growing radicalization of Orthodox Israelis combining nationalism and religion in a mirror of the Muslims around them. It is an explosive mix (pun intended). The fate of Lebanon with the Maronite Christian population dwindling is telling in of itself. Prior to 1975, many thought Lebanon to be the model of a cosmopolitan Arab state. It was once thought Lebanon would become the pathfinder for the recognition of Israel. This book makes clear just how much Lebanese society has changed.

The author discusses the takeover of the Bethelehem Church of the Manger (where Jesus was believed to have been born). This event was shocking because it seemed to indicate that the Arab-Israeli conflict had spilled over into Christianity's most revered spots.

The book is well-written. Like a book of another generation still worth reading (Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem) this book will give the reader a spot on report from the region regarding not just Christians in peril, but in the larger sense the current situation of the Middle East. To me the Christians in the book are the prism of innocence, if you will, who have no stake in the political battle and yet are overwhelemed by the entire scene of madness. From this prism, you are allowed to glimpse the Arab-Israeli conflict in all its madness.

It is too bad the author could not go to Iraq and visit with the Chaldean Christians who are being terroized by the unstable situation in Iraq. Generations ago, the Iraqi Jews were sacked, and now the Chaldeans are being run out as well.

If you have any interest in the Middle East, whether from the purely political perspective, or you have an interest in Christianity in a time of conflict, or you wish an interesting perspective of what is going on in the Middle East from a different and unique perspective, this is a good book to read. I won't say it is 'fair and balanced,' but in my book your job as reader is to decipher for yourself where you stand on issues as part of good critical reading.

All in all, worth reading.

At a time when so many of us want to know and need to know more about the Middle East, this book is an essential read. The writer has the keen eye of a reporter as he brings readers along a pilgrimage through the modern Middle East, a path that leads to new understanding of the issues that shape this land. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, this book is a refreshing way to look at this ancient land. With beautiful writing and a sure understanding of history, Sennott takes readers on a journey along the path of Jesus' life.... I can't recommend this book enough.

This book came out without fanfare and without attention by most media at a critical time in history. The Arab Middle East were being blamed for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and painted as extremist Muslims. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was reaching its greatest intensity since 1948.
For those with a provincial media-driven view of Arab Palestine this will be an eye-opener. For those with a Western Christian perspective of the Holy Land as a touristic site in Israel this tome is a must read to remind them of their forgotten fellow Christians in the original land of Christ.
Although I have an issue with the author's attempt to stand the Palestinian Christians' values apart from the values of Palestinian Muslims, this is a superb narration of the past and present Israeli-Palestinian problem with the palpable humanity of its Christian population as its protagonist.
Its forthright honesty and non-propagandist perspective can be the only reason it did not reach in these times the aclaim it deserves.

Charles Sennott, who describes himself as a "lapsed Catholic," has written a beautiful and at times heartbreaking book about his pilgrimage through the Holy Land in search of Christians. On the surface, this seems a strange way of putting the matter: surely the Holy Land is precisely where one can find Christians! But as Sennott points out, "Holy Land" is an ambiguous expression which immediately raises the question "Whose Holy Land?" And in the current demographic landscape, Jews and Muslims increasingly populate and predominate.

In searching out and telling the stories of some of the remaining Christians, Sennott does a remarkable job of weaving together commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, relations between the three Abrahamic religions, the possibility of peace in the Middle East, and the role of that spiritual beliefs play in a world too preoccupied with power politics. His cameos of individual Christians, Palestinian and otherwise, are wonderful, and his autobiographical musings on how his pilgrimage is influencing his own inner life worth reflecting on.

Sennott is also a good writer, as you would expect a journalist to be. My only complaint about the book is that it's too long, as so many books by journalists seem to be these days. But the judicious reader can read some parts intensely while scanning others, and find the book more than worthwhile.

Charles Sennott thoroughly researched and reported on the stories that form the nucleus of this book, and it shows. His book evinces sympathy for all sides caught up in the vortex of conflict that centers in the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Sennott's thesis is that the world (especially the Christian West) remains dangerously indifferent to the diminishing presence of native Arab Christians in the Middle East who are a living link to the Christian past, and who throughout the years have constituted a vital mediating role between Muslims and Jews. With the Christians gone, Muslim and Jewish antagonism comes into more direct contact and the possibility for peace becomes ever more elusive.

His anecdotes help the reader get inside the mind of the protagonists and see this ongoing drama from their point of view.

Sennott honestly enumerates his biases as he leads the reader to navigate the intensely sensitive and complicated issues related to Arab Christianity in the Middle East.

Some interesting insights/topics (I am not necessarily agreeing with the author, but simply relating what he reports):

--A significant number of "Jewish" Russian immigrants to Israel are actually Orthodox Christians

--Israel has often sought to employ a "divide and rule" strategy to turn Palestinian Muslims and Christians against each other

--Some elements of Muslim Palestinian resistance have exploited Palestinian Christian communities, for example attacking Israelis from Christian towns/holy places, knowing that Israelis will have a much harder time responding militarily to these areas due to Western attention to these holy sites

Sennott also explores the conflict between Copts and Muslims. Missing is information on Iraqi Christians who have left Iraq in droves. This edition was published prior to America's 2003 invasion though, and at the time it would have been difficult for a Western journalist to get substantive information on the community there.

--The Palestinian resistance has become more consciously religious rather than secular/nationalistic, further alienating Palestinian Christians, i.e. dubbing the 2000-2001 conflict the al-Aqsa intifada, which is a Muslim, not a Christian label.

All-in-all, a thoroughly interesting read and a well written one--well worth the reader's time.

This is a fascinating first-hand account of the Holy Land as seen by the author-journalist. While much of the writing deals with the disappearance of Christians in the Holy Land and the causes of their emigration,the author presents a balanced view of the three Abrahamic faiths and the difficulties encountered in their living together in this country. Although written in 2000, the information presented is still current as the struggles continue. If anything, the situation is even worse now that when the book was written. The suthor interviewed many individuals as he traveled throughout the Holy Land, and I found their stories very interesting.

You must come to this book with an open mind, unburdened by either a pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian bias. Sennott skillfully explains an impossible situation, one of two peoples--both with historic claims--trying to live on one land. The greatest value of this book is his central story: making us aware plight of Christian Arabs, a forgotten group in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reading of the daily humiliation and impossible situation of these persons (I was shocked to learn by by LAW Palestinians cannot purchase land in Israel--depriving them of their traditional means of making a living, farming).Though Sennott makes clear how the Israeli Jews have (seemingly unaware) turned from the oppressed into oppressors, he is even-handed and notes how the real tragedy is each party's inability to acknowledge the sufferings of the others.
A great book for understanding the complexities of this conflict--all sides of it.

This book focuses on discussions the author had with Arab Crhistian in Israel and the Occupied Territories in 1999 - 2000, with side trips to examine the status of Christians in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, as well as recent Russian immigrants to Israel who are of Jewish ethnic background but are Russian Orthodox in religion. The author's picture of a community that is too often ignored in discussions of the conflict as a Jewish/Islamic battle is therefore a valuable contribution. Highlights include important narratives which are rarely encountered in writings about the Middle East, such as the chapter discussing the oppression of the Coptic minority in Egypt and the very interesting account of an attempt to organize non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation in the Palestinian town of Beit Shapour, almost the only instance of non-violent rebellion in Palestinian history.

The book is somewhat weakened by the author's manifest lack of sympathy for the other embattled minority he is necessarily writing about, the Israelis. Sennott's historical discussions and statistics demonstrate that there has always been a significant Christian presence in this region that is now in danger of dying out, primarily through emigration. He regularly implies that the creation of Israel is the primary factor which has led to the mass emigration and near disappearance of ancient indigenous churches. But this claim is unconvincing even viewing his own accounts, such as the worsening condition and growing emigration of Egyptian Christians, a development not directly affected by Israel. This suggests an alternative explanation of the ruin of the Christian communities Sennott describes, a growing intolerance for religious/ethnic minorities in general in the Arab world in an era of increased Arab/Muslim nationalism and xenophobia. This hypothesis seems far more convincing than Sennott's if one includes such facts as the forced expulsion of Jews throughout the Arab world, the abuse of Kurds in Syria and Iraq, the troubles of the Berbers in North Africa, etc. But these points are outside Sennott's topic and not analyzed or even mentioned.

Sennott's dislike for Israel shows in his choice of words. To give one example, he casually says that the Arabs of Nazareth have been 'disenfranchised' by Israel. He doesn't explain what he means by that, which is probably just as well. In fact, since Nazareth is inside Israel, the local population has been able, since Israel was created, to vote for freely elected governments at both the local and national level, a right which of course they never had before becoming 'disenfranchised' Israeli Arabs.

The book is necessarily out of date due to the rapid developments in the region. However, the last chapters do give an account of the early months of the present Intifada, and give interesting details not usually present in news accounts. Sennott describes how the emphatically Islamic character of this Intifada contrasts with the nationalist thrust of the previous conflict, thereby excluding Palestinian Christians - and the fact that some Imams have described the current battle as an 'Intifada against Christians and Jews', making the exclusion of Palestinian Christians entirely explicit and direct. Quite striking is the account of how gunmen linked to the PA deliberately use unwilling Christian neighborhoods and houses to fire on Israeli positions, inevitably drawing return fire that devastates the target communities.